Frank Marshall Davis asks what a full moon means by letting different observers answer. A prisoner sees a useless white door blocked by bars. Frogs see a glowing toadstool. A thief sees a stool pigeon that exposes crime. A young lover sees a pearl to give his sweetheart. Then the poet’s own answer arrives: the moon is a beautiful, ageless, deathless, infinitely sad woman gazing through a dark veil of stars. Finally, a scientist reduces it to a “periodical phenomenon” of reflected light and lifeless rock.
The poem moves from concrete desires and fears to romantic longing, then undercuts that emotion with cold fact. The speaker clearly leans toward wonder and melancholy rather than measurement. The mood is dreamy, lonely, and a little wry — as if asking whether any definition can really contain the moon.